It’s true… selling your rural, vacant land can sometimes mean that you have to pay. (This isn’t always the case but it often is.) We want to you to know about the different charges you have to pay because this information may help you decide whether to work with an agent or to sell your land directly to an investor.
What Are The Different Charges Paid To Agents Versus Paid To Investors? — Agent Fees
An agent is a salesperson and they will try to find a buyer to buy your land. In order to do this, they will list your land in a listing service and use various marketing efforts to try and find a buyer.
So you’ll end up having to pay some charges to the agent. Those charges usually include a commission if they can sell the land (this is the highest amount of money you’ll have to pay and it’s often about 10% of the sale price of the land, or about $5,000 for a $50,000 property since they charge a higher percentage for land than a house). There may be other charges you have to pay as well, and these might include different advertising charges or other costs associated with selling your land. There might be a charge to list your land, or there might be a charge to the agent’s brokerage or there might be a charge to get a sign in front of your property or there might be a charge for the title company… the list goes on and on. You can ask the agent about these and they should tell you.
What Are The Different Charges Paid To Agents Versus Paid To Investors? — Investor Charges
This is the part that surprises most land-sellers: for most investors, there are rarely any charges to cover. Investors will usually take care of all charges associated with selling. Plus there’s no commission to pay because they’re not agents so they’re not listing your rural, vacant land. You might be responsible for closing costs but this depends on the investor so make sure you ask the investor who pays for those costs.
The One “Charge” You May Not Be Thinking Of
There’s one more cost (“charge”) that you might not be thinking of: when you work with an agent, they may get you to fix up or clean up your land and then you’ll have to pay bills and taxes for as long as it takes the agent to find a buyer. So although this isn’t a charge to the agent, it’s a cost you’ll have to pay because of the agent… yet when you sell the land to an investor, they buy quickly so you end up saving this cost as well.
So what’s right for you? It depends on how much you’re willing to pay and how quickly you need to sell.
If you want to go over this in more detail or confirm that we won’t charge you any charges if you sell your land to us then please get in touch and we’ll be happy to walk you through it.